Figures obtained from Westmorland and Furness Council show that some Penrith businesses are failing to pay the compulsory levy towards the town’s two Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), leaving shortfalls in the funding that are supposed to help improve the town centre and industrial estates. Others, who are paying on time, say they are being left to shoulder the burden.
Figures show that in the Penrith Industrial BID, nearly £16,000 went uncollected in 2023/24, with more than £7,400 written off entirely. Although collections briefly exceeded expectations in 2024/25, a fresh shortfall of over £5,200 appeared in 2025/26. The Penrith Town BID has faced similar problems. In 2023/24 the levy raised just over £91,000 and was covered in full thanks to back payments, but by 2025/26 more than £23,000 of the £136,000 levy went unpaid.
Frustrated traders have voiced concerns that they are paying their bills while others are not. One business owner said: “We’re paying our levy every year, but then we find out tens of thousands aren’t being collected from other levy payers, it’s unfair that some are paying but others are not”.
The levy paid by town centre business is calculation based on 1.5% of the property's most recent rateable value which have a rateable value of more than £4,000.
The levy paid by businesses in the industrial estates to the industrial BiD is 2% of the property business rateable value paid by all businesses.
The Town BID is now in its third five-year term after the original third term vote failed to get enough support in 2022 resulting in a second ballot taking in place in 2023 resulting in the third term passing the required vote threshold and the Industrial BID in its second, both bids will face a fresh vote in just over two years.
But despite overseeing hundreds of thousands of pounds in levy funding, both the Town BID and the Industrial BID have not published minutes of board meetings or financial updates since late 2024. The lack of up-to-date records is adding to questions about how levy money is being managed and whether businesses are getting what was promoted in the bid vote proposals in return for the levy that some are not paying.
The Penrith Town BID board, which includes two serving Penrith Town Councillors, has recently invited Westmorland and Furness Council to appoint one of its councillors as a board member and director — a move the authority is still considering. The town BID is behind events, including Penrith’s Christmas Lights and Christmas Sparkle event, the floral displays and this year’s series of Saturday activities in Great Dockray.
The industrial BiD has delivered new signage, measures to get rid of seagulls on the industrial estates, initiatives to promote active travel around the industrial estates and training events for local businesses.
Questions have also been raised over thousands of pounds in grant funding given by Westmorland and Furness Council to some of the other BiD’s in the south of the district with Barrow BiD receiving hundreds of thousands in grant funding and support from the council funding and support that is not provided to the local Penrith BiD’s.
Westmorland and Furness Council has also been heavily involved in the Barrow BiD floral displays and Cumbria in bloom entity in recent years, but Penrith floral arrangements and funding has fallen on the Town BiD and Town council to fund and deliver.
Darren Broad Chairman of Penrith BID said “We would like to thank Penrith Town site for bringing to our attention a technical issue that has prevented our 2025 minutes and accounts for not showing in the BID website. This has now been fixed and all missing documents are now viewable.”
“This issue has not been due to any failings or insinuations of trying to hide the documents, but more about a website back office failure with publishing to the front webpage that we were unaware of. “
“While figures from Westmorland and Furness Council are correct, your readers should understand that no BID in the country ever collects 100% of their levy due to businesses closing, changes of ownership etc. In fact, most BIDs around the country will work on a 90 - 95% collection amount to take this into account.”
“W&F Council, by law, has to collect the levy for Penrith BID. This is a regulation set by Government. Indeed, we would say that since W&F has been the collecting authority, the service we have had from them has been exemplary. They have done great work over the last 18 months to collect outstanding levy from businesses who have not paid in previous years which does include court action if necessary,although we would prefer it didn’t go that far to businesses as that incurs more cost. But that choice solely rests with those businesses who refuse to pay.”
“The current law regulations state that once a BID is voted in by businesses, ALL businesses with the levy area must pay the levy regardless how they individually voted. It will take a change of regulations and law by the Government to change this ruling. Full details of this can be found by those questioning in the comments in our business plan, in the terms and conditions, online.”
“We can assure businesses that pay their levy, that everything is done within the power of law to those businesses who refuse to pay and are taken through every process to recover levy money owed to the town.”
“Your readers also need to understand that the money collected is re-invested back into the levy area. It is NOT public money and therefore a BID is not accountable to its local authority. W&F cannot say how we spend the levy money collected. As a limited company, all of our accounts are transparent and can be found online for anyone to view.”
“We would like your readers to reflect on where this town would be if not for the extra investment that our businesses put into the town. There would potentially be NO Christmas lights or switch on event, NO amazing flower displays throughout the town across the summer, NO 8 week programme of events every Saturday across the summer and NO additional funding to other events across the year putting them in jeopardy of not happening.”
The Spreadsheet shows all BiD's with Levy and Collections by Westmorland and Furness Council over the last three years along with amounts uncollected and written off.
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